Chelsea Small /// Part 1 /// 495 | Forensic Files

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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] o most crimes are solved fairly quickly
this includes the worst and most heartbreaking of crimes murder law enforcement use information
collected at the crime scene and eyewitnesses to lead them to the perpetrator or perpetrators of the
crimes they are investigating and then an arrest is made after that it's left to the courts and
often a jury of one's peers to sort it out and it's another bad guy or killer off the streets but then there are those
crime scenes that yield little in the way of Clues and after talking with persons in the area you discover they
too are able to provide only a tiny amount of helpful and useful information it doesn't happen often but
when it does law enforcement rely on their greatest of allies the general public because the
public together is powerful powerful and generally despises criminals especially
the violent ones as much as the women and men with badges working so hard to track them down and that is what we have
on tap here in the garage this week it's a unique crime of the worst kind a killer with a brief interaction with the
victim and then just seconds later he vanishes leaving police with little to work with one of the first articles
regarding this murder is from the Detroit Free Press from November 13th 2013 and
reads Taylor Michigan clerk at cash advance store killed police are investigating the fatal shooting of a
30-year-old female clerk at an Advanced America Cash Advance store 8229 Telegraph one question facing detectives
is whether Chelsea Anne small a mother of two from Gibralter knew her attacker an alarm was pressed just
before noon Tuesday police say officers found small dead the killer had fled security tapes show a male
suspect call 1800 speak up if you have information but garage regulars will know that we have a much larger story to
tell join us as we tell this horrific True Crime Story and ask the Public's help to track down a
killer this is true crime garage before we get earballs deep into this week's case I think it is most
fitting to paint a picture of the area of where this horrific crime took place this week's unsolved homicide does not
belong in any town or city but but it's incredibly out of character for where it
did take place so today we are going to go to Taylor Michigan which is located in Wayne County Michigan and Taylor is
southwest of Detroit the population is a little more than 60,000 good hardworking
people the crime rate in Taylor is not what I would call particularly high for a city of that size but we should note
in the last 20 years on a scale of 1 to 100 the US violent crime rate is 22.7 and Taylor Michigan's violent crime
rate comes in at 27.1 so a little above the national average but 60,000 people is a
considerable population and due to the city's location it's near Detroit and the other nearby cities are pretty well
populated too Taylor sees its fair share of traffic and passers through now I've
never been to Taylor only drove through myself but from what I can tell this is your typical nice Michigan City Taylor
is named for Zachary Taylor a one-time national hero and our 12th president in Taylor we have a well-traveled road
where the unsolved homicide that we are discussing this week this is where this went down this is on Telegraph Road
Telegraph is part of US Highway 24 the highway runs through three counties in Southeastern michig again this is Monroe
Wayne and Oakland counties so obviously this is a well-traveled road this is Telegraph Road now back in
2013 on Telegraph Road we have the Advanced America check cashing store this is one of those High interest rate
loan joints every city has one in larger cities you'll certainly see several of these types of businesses advaned
America specializes in lines of credit payday loans which is a short-term loan typically paid typically due on your
next payday installment loans and title loans where you get money by offering up
the title to your vehicle but you still get to drive your vehicle as you pay that back and I don't know about today
but back in 2013 some of these locations offered Tax Services as well I'm unsure captain of
the business hours 8 years ago but I wouldn't imagine that the business hours would vary Too Much from the current
hours which are as follows closed on Sunday important especially in this case now we are going to take you back
to Tuesday November 12th 2013 13 we have 30-year-old Chelsea Small she is working
solo at the Advance America located at 8229 Telegraph Road in Taylor the business opened up at 10:00 a.m. that
day so I would imagine this means she is arriving shortly before 10:00 a.m. depending on the opening duties Chelsea
is working in a manager capacity which would be expected if she is opening and operating the business by herself
which is the case on this day according to Chelsea's mother Debbie Cayman around
10:30 a.m. the two of them talked briefly on the phone Debbie says Chelsea told her that she had just finished up
some of her early morning task and really everything sounded like business as usual Chelsea's only complaint was
that it seemed like they were dumping a lot of work on her at this current time we all experience this at work right
just another day especially middle of the week when you just want to get all of your work done get the work day over
with and go home so this is very likely the way that Chelsea felt on this Tuesday so everything was plain and
simple normal this is until 12:04 p.m. so this is lunch hour on a very busy road a man knocks on the door of the
Advanced America now we say knock we don't know for certain but in the dramatization that they show the man
knocked or tapped on the door but what we do know for certain is that there would be some type of notification that
the man wanted to enter the business be it simply visual or otherwise because the store Front is glass including the
front door but the door is always locked it's typical for these businesses to always be locked even during business
hours and you even see this at some banks and jewelry stores and such so think of a jewelry store or a bank where
you have to be buzzed in this is the same thing you can't enter until a staff member hits the button which unlocked
the door and then you are free to proceed inside now some robberies are obvious right you see a mask you see a
weapon or someone you know to be bad news and you don't hit the button you don't unlock the door some robberies are
obvious this one was not what Chelsea would have seen when looking at the man standing at the door waiting to be
buzzed in is a pretty average looking stocky middle-aged man she buzzes him in he opens the door and walks inside now
the layout of the business is very basic you have the storefront where the customers enter Then There is probably
about 8 ft deep maybe a little more but all the way across the entire width of the store this is standing room only
space where lines can form this standing space leads up to counters where staff can assist the clients the counter goes
all the way across so picture a line that goes from one wall all the way to the other this completely separates the
staff from the customers on the other side there is a little door in the middle of the counter and the counter is
like chest High and the little door looks to be just slightly shorter than the counter Now Chelsea is sitting at
the counter space furthest to the left of the man so he walks in and approaches Chelsea at this counter space to the
left it looks to me like she starts to get up and this could be for any number of reasons simply just to greet the
customer or she could have noticed something because this man has a gun now the gun is not obvious to me
before he is standing right in front of her in fact he brought with him a dark bag so I have seen and heard this bag
describ two different ways one like a banker type bag this could be with a zipper or some of them even have maybe a
lock but the way that it's most commonly described and described by detectives as
well is that the bag is more like one of those flimsy drawring type bags and again I've seen and watch the security
camera footage repeatedly and it absolutely looks like a cheap drawring bag to me and I got to tell you Captain
it looks way too much like a drawring type bag that I'm awfully shocked that there's even that bank bag description I
think that that just kind of muddies the waters a bit let's go a little more in depth of what we see we have a white
male wearing a black baseball cap dark blue I can't tell if it's a shirt or if it's a jacket but it looks like it's
either tucked into his uh pants or maybe it's a elastic waist if it's a jacket uh
he's wearing black pants and it looks like um they look like tennis shoes to me but
I can't tell if they're just like dirty white tennis shoes or if they're supposed to be like tan they're
described by law enforcement as light colored boots or shoes and then also you notice on the baseball cap there's a
little white marking on one side so there's an emblem on the front of the ball cap and an emblem on
one side of the cap and there's also some kind of white tag or some kind of white emblem somewhere on his pants it
might be it's near the belt area uh if for those that have not seen pictures of this perpetrator but from what I can
tell the per arrived at the advanced America store with the bag mhm so then he will take this with him when he
leaves so other than what can be seen on the security footage of course no one knows for certain exactly what kind of
bag it is we can only look at it from the footage and describe it it's dark in color and if I had to guess it's black
but again we can't say for sure and I'd agree with you most of the pictures that
you see of this bag I would agree with you it looks like a cheap drawstring type bag but there is one image where it
looks like maybe there's a zipper across the whole top or maybe it's a envelope or something sticking out there's one
picture that maybe looks more like a bank bag yeah it definitely appears to open on the top or on one side okay so
the man walks in and goes to the counter at the far left Chelsea is sitting and appears to start to stand up either to
greet him or because she is alarmed by seeing the gun my guess captain is that the gun was in this bag as he gets to
the counter and then he pulls the gun from the bag and he immediately shoots Chelsea Small shoots her once he then
appears to place the bag on the counter and then he walks and I want to strongly
emphasize this for those who have not seen this footage he walks he does not run in fact he walks very calmly to his
right to that little door the door that separates the counters he reaches over the door again the door is just a little
shorter than the counters to the left and he hits some kind of latch or lever on the staff side of the door this frees
the door for him to push it open and he walks still very calmly behind the counter to the left up to the victim and
then fires the gun again he then can be seen looking around like on some of the counters behind the counters and then he
walks towards the back wall still in the same room appears to check some kind of
cabinet and calmly walks back to the front of the store now he's in the customer area again and then I believe
he puts the gun back inside of this bag I can't tell for certain but right the gun goes away and then he walks out of
the store when officers arrive on the scene they arrive within minutes and they find Chelsea Small Dead behind the
counter now a few things happened during the course of these events and we'll go
through each item after I list them here one the killer did make off with some money two Chelsea activated the silent
alarm this is how law enforcement knew to arrive on the scene indicating that a robbery was in progress mhm and three at
some point dur during this whole situation the Killer's gun jammed or malfunctioned at some point so the
killer entered the Advance America store at 12:04 p.m. this is a very specific time and detectives would know this
obviously based off of the security camera footage but likely from the electronic magnet door lock as well now
the building I worked in years ago it would make an electronic record every time the door was unlocked and opened so
while he would need to be buzzed in one could simply trigger the infrared proximity sensor and click the door
unlocks so he could leave the story he needs to be buzzed in but does not need to be buzzed out M now before we get
into those three pieces of information Captain I want to talk about the timing of all of this along with the door to
the business so we know thanks to the security measures and technology that the purpose pet trator entered at 12:04
p.m. this again is the lunch hour on a very busy road and then as far as we're being told
nobody sees a thing what we are being told is simply that the security camera is our only eyewitness so the timing
seems weird but notice when we went through the business hours M on Tuesdays Advance America is open only from 10:00
a.m. to 2:00 p.m. so it's the shortest hours of operation for the entire week remind me where are they open on Mondays
the business is closed on Sunday open from 10: a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday Wednesday Thursday Friday 10:00
a.m. to 2: p.m. on Tuesday and 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays so maybe the perpetrator knows that there could be
less customers on Tuesday or possibly he knows that there's less employees on Tuesday because of the short shorter
schedule right and so where my head goes is I believe this tells us one of two things possibly both for the business
itself either the structure of this day is significant to the business due to some kind of operational procedure
required by the business right or and maybe it's an Andor this is most often the day when the business receives the
least amount of traffic the least amount of opportunity to generate more business
less traff means less staff so you got to wonder is this kind of random did he just pick this day at random because it
was good for his schedule or did he want to do this on this day because of the Limited hours right so did the killer
know this and was this Cho his choice of hitting the business on a Tuesday part of some kind of bigger plan right if I'm
robbing the place or targeting someone that works there well this is a good day for me to carry this out as I should in
most likelihood encounter less tellers or staff also less customers less people in the parking lot but then my other
question though too is if this is the day that the business is going to see the least amount of customers is it
possible this is the day that they carry the least amount of cash with with inside the building that's a good
question and again I I also point out the possibility that it has something to do with the the behind the scenes
operation of the business right and that might just be the case we don't know for
certain but regardless these are hours that are posted that people could easily find I personally believe that it's it's
not so random that he picked this day and it happens to be their shortest day I kind of feel like we're working with a
sophisticated criminal someone that takes a lot of time and planning goes into do crimes as well as a man that a
criminal that's patient I agree because like you said when he come when he gets into the building he shoots her right
away it's almost like he he had a plan and he he really stuck to his plan and that's what's so damn tricky about this
case because you go all right well he shoots her right away so was he was he there just to commit the murder and then
take some cash to make it a little confusing right to appear as the mode of being robbery and not murder or did he
decide in advance you know I'm making this robbery I'm not leaving any Witnesses right or
did he did he somehow figure out that she hit the panic button that she triggered the silent alarm so I spoke
with one of the detectives that's worked this case and he told me it was in fact
you know a very traditional silent alarm the the robber would not have heard anything it's not a you know like most
people's home security systems there's a loud siren that's going off this would have been a button that she would have
pushed that that he may have seen her push it he may not have we can't tell from the security footage I'm on this
idea right now of the parking lot Captain because if he did choose this day I think he chose this day for the
purpose of there being less staff there probably number one good chance of less C customers less people in the parking
lot you don't want people seeing you in and out of this business on this day so speaking of the parking lot we've
already mentioned that this is a major road there are a lot of businesses obviously on this street in 2013 the
Advance America was located at 8229 Telegraph now it's no longer there there is a tax place there now I believe from
my understanding is that once this homicide took place I'm not certain that the business ever opened back up or if
they did people stop going there there's a tax there a tax place there now so this
was on the east side of the street in a shared building there's room for four businesses in this building with their
own Storrs so you would have the addresses of 8225 8229 82 33 and 8237 8229 is Advanced America it's the
second from the left when you're facing the building there were two other businesses in operation at that time so
I imagine the parking lot in 2013 would have been configured about the same as it is today and it looks to be that
there are just six parking spaces in front of the businesses that's a total of six not six each mhm the building is
bookended by additional parking the problem with our case is we don't have any witnesses to the crime other than
this single security camera inside the Advance America we don't have security footage from outside Advance which could
provide some answers right like well I'm guessing the other workers in the other
building never even heard gunshots you'd love to know what kind of vehicle this guy was
driving yeah you know make model year maybe even a plate number you'd you'd love to know where this guy parked
because here's the other troubling thing we don't have any eyewitnesses saying they saw this guy
outside of the Advanced America we don't have anybody telling us what kind of vehicle he was driving where he came
from and of course where did he go makes you wonder if somebody dropped him off and I mean this is such a quick
attack quick plan executed that did somebody drop him off Circle back around and pick him up and head out of town
wonder if he didn't park there or didn't get dropped off and I'm basing that off
of fact that we don't have anybody telling us that they saw him coming or going from the store MH and this is
bizarre because it really reminds me a lot of the I70 killer case where we had a suspect description and a gun
description but out of all of those attacks no one seemed to know what the guy was driving where he came from and
where he went now one suspicion in that case in the I70 case was that the perpetrator was parking in the
neighborhoods that the businesses backed up to and that could very well be the case here as that is a possibility if
you look it up on the map there are houses behind the Advance America building West Point Street runs behind
the businesses and in fact West Point dead ends twice so the road stops it's not complete so there are houses on West
Point it dead ends there's like one lot size of space that is grass and then the
road starts again and there are some more houses so someone could park their vehicle along West Point Road or at
either of the dead end spots cut through a yard again there's that space that is
just grass so you don't even really have to you don't even need to cut through someone's actual property you walk
calmly no one notices you if you look like you should be there it's a busy road lots of people moving about you
walk calmly to the parking lot walk past the pizza place up to the door of the Advanced
America and earlier we said knocked on the door to notify Chelsea that he wanted in because that's the way it went
down in the dramatization but from the news footage I looked at the news footage
from from that November 2013 now mind you the cameras that are trying to film this this is After Crime
Scene tape is set up and everybody already knows what went down but the cameras are back by the street so
they're a little distance away so it's a little hard to tell but it looks to me Captain like there's a button to the
left of the door this is probably a bell or a buzzer that the customers push that
trigger some kind of noise not ification to the staffers so they can make a quick
visual check of the person unlock the door and let the customer in in this case the man
in now your thought goes to well then this buzzer or Bell would be the one thing
for certain that we know the killer touched so let's try to pull some prints off of this thing now again I've watched
the security footage that was released to the news outlets over and over again and I I am 100% convinced that the man
is wearing gloves in fact I believe he's wearing white or off-white latex gloves and if
so fingerprints won't be a factor and the only thing you really see him touch on the camera footage once he's inside
is that latch on the back of the door to go behind the counter on the footage I believe that
I'm seeing a much different color let's pretend he's not wearing gloves it would
look to me like his his face color and hand skin color are completely different and that's what I'm kind of basing that
off of that it looks to me that he could be wearing [Music] gloves this show is sponsored by better help do
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2023 [Music] all right we're back cheers M mes cheers to you crispy of the crispiest colonels
cheers captain and I will be posting this surveillance footage on our Instagram Facebook and also our website
at True Crime garage so check it out because I'd be interested to see if people will see anything different than
we are picking up on the other thing too is think of this week's episodes as more
of a commercial right it's a commercial asking everyone for their help put your eyes on this footage let us know what
you see let the police know if you know something or recognize this man and the captain every week thanks you for
listening thanks you for telling a friend this week we would would like to thank you for telling a friend about
this case not necessarily about our show but about the Chelsea Small case her sister has said that she believes that
the reason why this case has not yet been solved is that the right set of eyes have not seen this case the local
police department the detectives say that they put the probability rate of solving this case very high we just need
a lot of people to take a break and take a quick look at this footage somebody out there will recognize something now
the general autopsy information in this case Captain is that our victim was shot
twice once in the chest and then once in the head the killer did make off with some money the reports I have seen
states that the killer made off with $200 cash so very simple the shooter comes in walks right up to Chelsea now
there is no audio on the security footage but it does appear appear that very briefly that there are some words
exchanged between the shooter and victim and at some point Chelsea activates the
silent alarm indicating a robbery in progress the killer shoots her once walks around the back of the counter and
shoots her again and then he looks around very quickly this is interesting to me because he could be looking for
more money obviously but when he goes to the back part of me wonders if he's looking to see if there was anyone else
in the business you know making sure that there's no that's a very good point no other eyewitnesses or or maybe he's
looking for somebody else he he makes a move to go to the back but as calm as he
is he does seem to want to get in rather get in and out rather quickly but again
could just be looking for money their their business's money I just don't understand why they only have one
employee I I almost I'd almost assume that they would have two employees even even on a half day like on their half
day on Tuesdays and maybe just one of them didn't show up that day and from every report that's out there the he's
only inside of this business depending on which report you look at 60 to 70 seconds 60 to 70 seconds so everything
was happening very fast and unfortunately this man was very efficient at whatever it was that he was
doing now we said two shots fired but at some point in the commission of these crimes the Killer's gun jammed or
malfunctioned at some point so this left a live round this is on the side of the
store that is nearest the door so a silent alarm at that business on a major road is a very high priority call for
police my guess on a Tuesday around noon you're dispatching multiple cars to that
scene when police arrive the Killer is gone the door is locked and now given the current situation there is no one to
buzz open the door for the police to come in and take a look around but that live round that bullet
is on the floor and police see this and that changes everything right because then they very quickly break the glass
door they go in and unfortunately they find this young woman Chelsea Small Dead on Arrival well this case is so
frustrating because like you said I I don't know if I see that he's wearing gloves but we have no fingerprints as
far as what he was setting out to do did a good job of that other than the gun being jammed and possibly this uh shell
casing I don't see what mistake he made it's but I can't definitively tell you what the motive was was the motive to
kill Chelsea and then to get a little little money to then confuse cops or make people think that it was just a a
robbery or was it just a simple robbery and she was a innocent bystandard dude your feelings are spoton because the
detectives that have worked this case they it's a mixed bag between their opinions on the motive of what went down
there are some detectives that say absolutely this was a robbery he didn't want to leave any eyewitnesses there are
other detectives that say the robbery makes no sense he walks right in shoots her he makes sure that she's dead too
with the second shot right and that makes me lean towards the motive being murder correct and he the other thing
too is he doesn't attempt to access a safe or some of the detectives and again these are just this is just speculation
in people's opinions nobody really truly knows for sure but some detectives say look him looking
around seems like he's not really looking for anything in particular or looking for money and that's why I
wonder with the idea when he went to the back if he was looking for another person to see to make sure that there
was nobody else in that building because like you said regular dude myself included we would expect there to be
more than one person inside that building at that time so one of the best things that I've
heard a detective say in this case as as for what the motive may be is that if he was simply going in
there to rob the place and make sure that he didn't leave any Witnesses this man would be smart enough
to know most people would be smart enough to know that the best witness the best eyewitness in this case is the
camera not necessarily our victim unless the victim knows this man so you can take out the human
element the human eyewitness but he doesn't take out the computer eyewitness so that's it's very
interesting it's a it's a mixed bag amongst the Taylor Police Department as to what the motive may be and that
carries on to the public as well now her family Chelsea's family seemed to think
that they got to be some kind of connection between the Killer and their loved one they say that it could be
something as simple as she may have known him but only knew him through that business right this is a type of
business though there's a lot of paperwork a lot of paper trail here I almost feel like if it was somebody
that's related to the business to her her from work that they would have been able to
come up with something but there in lies again a whole another set of possible motives
that do not have to include robbery do not have to include Chelsea as the actual Target well like you said it it
could be a customer and yes there would be a paper trail but how many customers are we talking about you know at a bank
maybe you see a thousand some different customers within a month that that just brings a very large suspect pull and yes
you can start breaking it down by age weight and height but I don't know It's Tricky one and
this guy is so common looking I mean to me he looks like a somebody that would be out on the delivery or maybe a
maintenance worker or maybe somebody that works in a garage your spot on again the detectives have all said that
it they believe that he might be wearing some work type clothing you know that that is more of a uniform rather than a
casual outfit yeah I agree and the same thing that I said you know Chelsea's family has said that they think she
probably buzzed him in because maybe she recognized him and I don't not trying to
take anything away from them they know this case better than I do obviously and but I what I see here
Captain is what you just said such an average looking Regular Joe he's got to look like there's got to
be a thousand other guys that look like this guy in that area there's 60,000 people plus living in this area he looks
just like a regular guy that you would oh he hits the buzzer you hear the notification you look up regular dude at
the door buzz him in he's just a customer regular old customer but like you said when we were're talking about
um uniform this also looks like a a uniform that maybe a delivery driver would wear like somebody that was like
delivering like let's say appliances or it could be like a semi- driver so like it still looks like a work uniform to me
almost head to toe uniform to me yeah right like from from the Hat all the way down to the possible work boots I can't
say 100% certain that those are boots that's what it appears to me other people say they see tennis shoes but
yeah to me top to bottom work type outfit now if we're going to go into this and say well was Chelsea a Target
is that what was going on here I think we should briefly discuss victimology who was Chelsea Small she grew up in
jalter Michigan that's pretty close to Taylor just about a 20 minute drive right maybe about a 28 minute drive
north from Gibralter to the crime scene but in 2013 Chelsea was 30 years old with two small children she obviously
was working at Advanced America but was also attending school at Wayne County Community College where she very proudly
and appropriately so to be proud Chelsea was on the dean list these cases are all
sad and heartbreaking but especially so when we are talking about a mother a young woman from a close family I I want
to emphasize that this seems like a very close family to me she's also a person who was doing all of the right things
working and going to school and this really this job is just that it's just a job this is not a career for her
Advanced Amer am this was just a stepping stool something to build her resume make a decent wage to pay her
bills provide for her kids until she graduated college and would be moving on to bigger and better things and
unfortunately in 70 seconds that's all gone for what 200 bucks yeah what's her relationship with her
ex it seems to me and I only have to base this off of his words but he's the father of both of the
children uhuh they were never married and at some point they they separated but they according to him
remained very much a team in regards to taking care of the kids I wonder if he ever fought for custody because that
would be a motive he says that he considers Debbie Cayman who is Chelsea's mother to be like a second mother to him
so I don't know if he stayed close with her family since 2013 but according to him and his name's
Rick Fairley according to Rick they were in the process he and Chelsea were in the process of of discussing building
their rebuilding their lives together their family together MH now we were just talking about money 200 bucks I
want to make sure we are very clear on something before we move on I've said 200 bucks a couple of times that is the
amount cited in a couple of different sources news coverage sources mhm I don't have proof of this but I believe
that that is just a generic number again I don't have proof but I think somewhere
along the line someone said $200 and it's been repeated ever since then but I believe that the Taylor Police
Department stance on this information has never been an an exact dollar amount that their statement has always been a
small amount of cash less than $250 so there in lies really another big piece of this mystery what was the
gunman's motive for going into the store as you pointed out earlier captain in any of these cases we've seen this with
yogurt shop with the Lane Bryant shooting laus's bowling alley I mean the list just goes on and on when when the
dollar amount look no dollar amount is equal to Taking Lives but when the dollar amount is so small and the loss
of life is so significant there's it's unbalanced right that doesn't seem to be it doesn't seem to be right or make
any sense and then you go the are we sure that the motive was even robbery here's my other issue with the
way that this um dickweed looks like the we were talking about his outfit and we go well
it looks like a a worker's outfit but it wouldn't be that uh crazy if I was going to become a hitman
and it was my my first hit I could see wearing an outfit like this yeah you see what I'm saying and so
like even if it was your second or third hit right but you know what I mean like
it's like it it's very plain Jane let me there's not a lot of identifiers on any
of the articles of clothing yeah unfortunately we can't make out the emblem on the pants nor could we on the
hat and I did say earlier that there's an emblem on the front of the hat and the side there's 100% an emblem on the
side of the Hat yeah the the front is a little we should leave that open-ended a
little in question there cuz I don't think I can say 100% that I see an emblem on the front of the Hat well
again there's so many pictures and earlier when we were talking I kept on going I don't really see the gloves
now I cannot not see gloves so yeah once you see them they they seem to be there
every time and it's like like you said they're not the it's not like he's wearing bright uh white gloves they're
it's almost like there's something just kind of distorting his skin like like maybe he's like clear I think I think
it's like latex gloves yeah like clear latex gloves or something um but it just it doesn't make a lot of sense you know
because you go well so the so you're saying that and I'm not saying it's a Hitman but it's very Hitman likee when
you watch there's been other people to say that even police have speculated that and the thing is he he walks in
he's in and out and he's again the clothing you said the same thing it would be nondescript clothing and
everything's tucked in nice and neat right there's not like he's very buttoned up in a way to not to show
reveal too much of him or to possibly leave strands of hair there's very little interaction with the victim
herself that there's no indication that he even physically touched her right which is strange because he openly has
his hair flowing uh underneath his BAS baseball cap but he's got to look normal enough
for her to buzz him in but he has to look normal enough to get into the building right like not
not just for her to buzz in but for other people walking by to just walking to and from the building to not raise
any alarms but but what's weird hearing her mother talk about well there were customers that maybe had crushes on her
that maybe she wasn't interested in but you can't rule those guys out yeah just because this looks like a hit
because some people there is no emotion even though people would go well well they killed
this person because they weren't receiving their advances right but some people are just
that cold oh well she doesn't care about me well I want her dead but I can do it
in such a way where I I can leave my emotions out of this to make sure I don't don't get caught because it seems
like very cold come into the building shoot shoot the victim go look around for some money
shoot her again take off well think about when we covered the super bikes case out in South Carolina super bike
was the name of the business someone went in and shot several of shot and killed several of the workers it went
unsolved for many years they eventually solved it it ended up being Todd coap who committed those crimes but it went
unsolved because they couldn't they were looking for a connection between one of
the victims and the killer a personal connection yeah there was no personal connection there was a business
connection but he didn't care who it was that he killed he wanted revenge against
the business itself he went in there one day and he thought they were laughing at him and
poking fun at him and he went in there he waited till he didn't think he would encounter anybody
else till the place would be empty and almost very Hitman likee even though he's acting on his own behalf goes in
there and shoots everybody up well it could be the same thing here where it has nothing to do with Chelsea it has
nothing to do with really the money it's just I mean like you said people stopped
coming there so they shut down the business and could in a way he be an indirect customer right like let's say
because he's we can agree on his age he he's a middle-age man or appears to be could he be somebody that I don't
know purchased a vehicle for their son or daughter and then they went and took out a loan against the title you don't
pay that loan back they come and take your car could he could he have wanted want
some kind of Revenge that he's not directly a customer not directly affected by something the business was
doing it it it all gets a little it gets very tricky but I think we're going to start to see some leads here now kind of
wrapping up on the victimology here a little bit in regards to Chelsea herself uh you brought up the the ex-boyfriend
it's my understanding that since 2013 he has had custody of both of the children
and her mother and her sister so she has uh her parents were separated at some point and her mother remarried so
unfortunately she left behind a sister mother stepfather father and um some step sisters but her sister and more so
her mother Debbie Cayman have been the loudest voices to keep this case alive and the most visible of the family to
keep this case alive again the ex-boyfriend Rick Fairley the father of the children has answered questions and
done interviews publicly so he's not hiding or ducking from anyone I've been told by detectives that he was looked at
you know you're going to look at anybody that's close to the victim and he was looked at and it sounds like he's not
our guy they don't have anything to connect him to the case but one thing that's really tricky
and so there have been three detectives who have been upfront and Center working
this case over the last eight years that seems like a lot the case lead has changed due to
retirement but the retired detectives keep a close eye on this case this is a case that's being worked as a team by
the Taylor Detective bureo When I asked the current lead this is detective Alex stilin of about the
case he said he would put the probability rate of solving this case at very high so while we're talking about
possible motives here because that's the weirdest part of this case I mean let's say Chelsea knew her
killer this guy thought he had some kind of reason to kill her well why do it there what right you would expect anyone
with half a brain knows that there's going to be a camera there yeah but if I do there and I take a little bit of
money I canuse the whole situation right if I if I kill her in her car even outside the place and I don't steal her
purse or something then we just know this was about murder and that's it but again for me I understand wanting to
kind of confuse the situation make it look like one crime when really it was all along a whole another crime right
but I don't know that I love the risk of being caught on camera doing anything or the potential of En encountering
another customer or another staff member yeah but if also if it was a hit that's and I don't know why this mother
two would they want somebody would put a hit out on her but it's better to do it
there because you're you're not going to have the kids around I agree of course but again not
wanting people around we know there's going to be a camera it just seems to me like you could have found a space a
place a time where you could have you could have caught her alone and done it then and there and not
had to worry about any type of camera at all now one very tricky variable in this
case is that if somebody was planning this out well Chelsea was covering for another staff member that
Tuesday and some of the reports state that it may have been a little bit of a a last minute not a very last minute but
a little bit of a last minute change the most detailed report of this I could find says that it was a few days before
the day of the homicide that she signed up for this shift so what is not in question is she's 100%
covering that shift for another team member on that day that she's killed so this is not Chelsea's regularly
scheduled workday this is out of her routine the change it sounds like came at Chelsea's request you know you trade
shifts with someone when you need a day off Chelsea took a day off to celebrate her son's fifth birthday this was just a
few days prior to the incident again how many people did she tell how many people
would have known that then you have to wonder Captain does that mean if this person working that day was the intended
target of a homicide was this man who acted so calm and callous he's every he's every part of the definition
of a coldblooded killer was he targeting somebody else when he walked into the Advanced America that
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Chelsea Small /// Part 1 /// 495

Part 1 of 2

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November 12, 2013 - 30 year-old Chelsea Small was fatally shot while working at a Cash Advance business in Taylor, Michigan. Questions facing detectives is wether Chelsea knew her attacker and the actual motive for the attack in the first place. The killer made off with a small amount of cash. Security tapes show male suspect with age ranging from 25- 50. Possible white male with dark bushy hair, ball cap with emblem, dark clothing that could be some type of work uniform and light colored boots or shoes. The man appears to remain extremely calm during the entirety on the crimes committed. Please watch the footage and look at the pictures of the suspect that have been released over the years. Someone will be able to identify this man. Detectives would like everyone to pay close attention to the man’s unique clothing and the label / tag on the man’s pants. They believe the clothing / tag could be the break in the case. We agree and would also like to point out that the weapon used was unique and the suspect may have committed additional crimes. Anyone with ANY information should submit a tip by phone at 1-800-speak-up or online at 1800speakup.org (http://1800speakup.org/)

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved murder of Chelsea Small and the investigation's challenges in Taylor, Michigan.

Key points

A Killer with a Plan. This week’s case features a calculated crime that leaves police with little to work with.
Chelsea Small's Tragic Story. The murder of a young clerk unfolds in a seemingly normal day.
The Silent Alarm. Chelsea activated a silent alarm during the robbery, alerting law enforcement.
Witnesses and Evidence. The lack of eyewitnesses complicates the investigation.
The Mysterious Homicide. A woman is shot in a robbery gone wrong, leaving detectives puzzled.
The Victim's Life. Chelsea Small was a dedicated mother and student, working to build a better future.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The public together is powerful and generally despises criminals.

4:58WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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